Duarte residents will decide whether to ban fireworks on November ballot

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Phantom Fireworks in the Target Shopping Center in Duarte, Calif., on Thursday , June 30, 2016. Residents in the north Duarte community expressed concern to the city council Tuesday night about the annual tradition of allowing residents to light their own legal fireworks at two city parks, which they say are too close to dry brush north of Huntington Drive. Officials say they will just beef up security at the parks. The city will reinforce strict restrictions in the city during the holiday weekend, allowing residents to light legal fireworks on July 4 only and during the hours of 11 a.m. and 10 p.m
(Photo by Keith Birmingham/ Pasadena Star-News)

Faced with a proposal to ban the private sales and discharge of fireworks in the city of Duarte, the City Council on Tuesday punted to the electorate, voting to place the matter before voters on the Nov. 6 ballot.

Duarte, along with Azusa and Alhambra, are among the few remaining areas in San Gabriel Valley where it is legal to buy fireworks. Faced with mounting pressure to ban their sale and use, the council voted 3-1 to ask residents to decide the matter.

“This [decision] is very special and personal. You can go any which way,” Councilwoman Tzeitel Paras-Caracci said. “The people need to decide this, and how the people decide it is how this council will follow.”

Placing the measure on the November ballot will cost $25,000, City Manager Darrell George told city leaders.

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City staff presented the council with three options: vote on the matter, send it to the voters or do nothing. Mayor John Fasana and Councilman Samuel Kang joined Paras-Caracci in voting to place the fireworks ban on the ballot. Councilwoman Liz Reilly was the sole dissenting vote, and Councilwoman Margaret Finlay was absent because of a family illness.

Reilly does not believe a ban will reduce the number of illegal fireworks incidents and citations in the city, despite that being one of the main arguments of supporters, she said.

“Those who disregard the current fireworks law will only continue to do so, and those who enjoy the legal Fourth of July traditions will be the ones who are punished,” Reilly said.

“What I feel is that you are taking a family’s choice on how to celebrate. We have a long tradition in Duarte of having block parties and enjoying each other’s company.”

A handful of residents at the meeting agreed with Reilly.

“Independence Day without fireworks would be like Christmas without presents or Halloween without costumes,” resident Sarah Skinner told the council.

Patti Jo Kaye, who has lived in Duarte for 26 years, said she has always celebrated July Fourth by gathering with her neighbors to set off fireworks.

“It’s all about building community,” Kaye told this publication after the meeting. “Sending people to fireworks shows is making them simply observers. Doing things with your neighbors makes you participants, and that’s what we need most these days.”

Across the aisle, supporters of the ban stated that safety trumps tradition, citing the negative impacts fireworks have on air quality, pets, fire risk and those with post-traumatic stress disorders as reasons to ban them.

“Duarte is supposed to be the city of health, and we should try to live up to that slogan,” resident Linda Acosta said.

Supporters of the ban are also hoping it will dramatically decrease the number of illegal fireworks that are set off in the city around the country’s birthday.

Duarte Safety First, a citizens group that has been spearheading the effort to ban fireworks, used public records to create a consumer fireworks report to present to the council last month. Its report showed that cities that bans legal fireworks issue far fewer citations for illegal fireworks incidents on July Fourth, Michele Silence, spokeswoman for the group, said after the meeting.

For example, Monrovia and Arcadia, both with firework bans, have issued one or two citations the past two years, she said.

This year alone, according to a city staff report, Duarte issued 31 citations for illegal fireworks — each a $1,000 fine — and confiscated 300 pounds of illegal fireworks.

Duarte’s existing fireworks ordinance permits the use of legal fireworks on July Fourth between noon and 11 p.m.

The city also allows five nonprofit organizations to operate fireworks stands during the holiday season to raise money for youth programs. As such, their demise will affect Kiwanis International, Duarte Education Foundation, Duarte High School Associated Student Body, League of United Latin American Citizens and Duarte Booster Club — groups that have relied on the fireworks sales as a major funding source, representatives have said previously.

City leaders and supporters of the fireworks ban agreed at the meeting to help the groups find fundraising alternatives if the measure passes in November.

Duarte Safety First “promises to put forth efforts to have a workshop on valuable fundraisers to help the nonprofits maintain almost all of their revenue,” resident Dena Dragoo said. “But I want to be very clear: We are proposing to do this workshop as long as there is a ban on fireworks.”

This is not the city’s first attempt to ban fireworks. After the San Gabriel Complex fire burned around 5,000 acres of the Angeles National Forest above Duarte in June 2016, the council discussed the possibility of placing a fireworks measure on the ballot for the November 2016 election.

The effort fizzed, however, two months later when the council failed to reach a majority vote on the matter. Paras-Caracci and Fasana voted in support of placing the fireworks ban on the 2016 ballot. Kang and Reilly voted against the resolution, with Finlay absent at that time as well.